Uganda, or... "Mzungu, who are you."

               Winston Churchill called Uganda the "Pearl of Africa." I would call it the beating heart of Africa, pure and absolutely charming. We spent a couple of wonderful weeks bumming around and can't wait to return. 

                Unassuming and quintessentially African, Uganda has had a past, but seems to have moved on with her best foot forward. Walking down any street in any town, we would be warmly greeted with toothy smiles and "Mzungu (whitey), who are you." We were never hassled by anyone on the streets for the usual touristy stuff, we felt incredibly safe and welcome. Our pictures are limited for the amount of time we were there, some of those memories are just ours... in a special place in our hearts.

We first went to Jinja, a town on Lake Victoria at the source of he Nile river. This is the Nile at Bujugali falls where we went white water rafting for the day. It was exciting knowing that when we fell off that there were crocodiles in the water when the water calmed.

 

Fishing boat sitting by the Nile. I couldn't figure out if this boat was not in use anymore or this was how they anchored the boat. I couldn't get an answer from anyone, they would just say it was a perfectly good fishing boat.

Ghandi's Ashes were scattered here at the source of the nile 

Us at the nile

Playing around a broken bridge by the Nile

More Nile

Bicycles are very popular here in Uganda. Gas prices are quite high, so everyone seems to have these Chinese bikes. These guys have a whole bunch of chickens on their bikes, walking though town.

They had some incredible fruit in Uganda. There were these pineapple carts all over town, where they would slice up fresh pineapple and sell it by the slice. It cost us like 35 cents for a whole pineapple, we ate a lot and it was super good.

This guy wanted his picture taken, so we obliged. People were quite excited to talk to us.

These were carryover from Tanzania. Everything was named after Barack. I had to buy some of his underwear, it cost me like a quarter.

This is the view from our hotel in Kampala, Uganda. The streets of Kampala are like nowhere else. just bustling all the time. People are just cluttering the streets, the city has this great energy, and it is very safe. We loved it because we could walk everywhere without worrying about being in a bad area and we could walk around at night. We hadn't really been able to do to much at night for a while so this was refreshing.

Street-life below our hotel. Dusty red streets, people hanging out, and people working.

Giant mosque that towers over Kampala. It is enormous.

All the walking left our feet somewhat dirty

Motorcycles are used as taxis in Uganda. They are called boda-boda's, we would hop on the back of them and defy death all through town. Each ride was a roller coaster of excitement and fear. As you can see in the picture the roads aren't a;ways the best and the drivers like to drive fast and recklessly.

We love the warnings on cigarette packages in other countries.

Chapatis are like a thick tortilla that they love to eat in east Africa. They make them on the streets and sell them for next to nothing. We ate them a lot.

In Uganda they made these omelette's and would roll them up in chapatis and we would eat them. They called the rolex's. we could buy 2 for like 50 cents and they were filling.

We hung out with one of my mission friends, Jacob, and his family in Jinja. We really had a great time with them, they are such a happy family and made us an incredible dinner of fresh tilapia from lake Victoria. 

Thomas, Jacobs son, in the front. And his cousins. Families tend to live close and spend a lot of time together. 

On the back of a Boda-boda. you can see the look of concern on my face.

We did a little volunteering in a orphanage in kampala and Chelsea fell in love with this little guy.  We would love to take him home, unfortunately we don't have a home to bring him to.

Chelsea spent a lot more time at the orphanage than me, I was working on grad school apps while she was serving. She spent a lot of time with the teachers at the orphanage, trying to help them get organized and giving them teaching tips. She wasn't allowed to take many pictures otherwise we would have more.